ELECTRIC LIGHTING.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 775, 26 March 1910, Page 6

ELECTRIC LIGHTING.

A CHEAPER WIRING SCHEME.

UNDERWRITERS AND THE CECX - COUNCIL TO CONFER.

. At the last meeting of the City Connoil the Finance Committee recommended that the council should have an interview with the Conference of Eire Underwriters,' which' is to meet in Wellington on April 20. The object of the interview is because the City Council felt that the regulations under which houses' are wired by the electric lighting department are not modern enough, and' it is desired to bring them up to date. ' The Mayor (Dr. Newman) las found that the receipts from : the electrio lighting department are not satisfactory at the present time, and part of this is due to.the fact that the Osram lamps which have been introduced during t£» past few months consume so much lesscurrent than the carbon filament lamps. This, while being a loss, to,the lighting: departmentjhas resulted in a greatgain to. citizens who voted for the light-. ing service. As chairman of the electrio > lighting department, the Mayor.... hasfound that, roughly .speaking, about5000'houses in the city/are lighted wtih electricity, and that there are at pre-, sent in round, numbers ;7500 housesk not so lighted. ,In other words, there' are in the city 46,000 people who get no benefit in their own nouses from the municipal lighting department. At the same time the 7500 householders would have to. bear their share of any deficit there might be on the working of thj department. Doubtless the main reason why these.76oo houses in the city do not use electricity is because the cost of installing the fight is so high. Quite recently in England and in Germany a new and much cheaper system of wiring houses has been introduced. The new system is called "free wiring," and the cost of the new system as against the present system is said to mean a reduction of 60 per cent. • In other words, if it cost a householder £10 to wire his house under the present system it would probably cost about £4 under the "free wiring" system. • Dr. Newman thinks -fiat if this system were introduced locally it would : lead to enormous extensions- in ! the telectrio lighting of houses. The new idea has been strongly. recommended to the Mayor by officers of tho lighting department,: but the underwriters' .rules,which were framed some considerable time ago, do not at present permit oB the system being adopted, although i£ has been in vogue in Germany for some time, .and has of late been, adopted in certain' large buildings in London. Many of the larger fire -insurance companies abroad have approved of the. scheme. It is hoped: that the result of. the conference between. the ; City Council and the underwriters will be that the .fire insurance; companies in New Zealand, will promota the new system, which would be a great gain to the city and to the. underwriters. The present rules regarding the installation of electriq light are also vexatious : and restrictive in other points, .and the Mayor considers that if.the rules are,modernised aa desired the result will be that a .very large number of houses in the city will shortly adopt the electric light. The city now possesses an' excellent electrio ■ lighting plant, and can produce, current cheaply, but so long as. tie firo underwriters' rules keep up the cost of installation to the -present high pitch. Dr. Newman does not see any chanoa.' of the business of the hghting.department, being enlarged..